In a forest, a man draped in dark robes ran with all his might in the downpour of rain. The sounds of clanging armour and yells could be heard following him with increasing intensity.

After running for what seemed like hours, the yells of his pursuers faded. He breathed a sigh of relief and stopped running.

"Damn it... How did they find us?", whispered the robed man as he inspected the number of cuts and bruises. As he slides his palm across his body, he flinches in pain with the touch of each injury.

"Fuck... No use thinking about it now". He ripped the sleeves and cape of this robes, and bandaged his wounds.

However, the robed man’s short rest was interrupted when the shouts of his pursuers returned.

"Sir, the hounds detected something in this direction!".

Now alarmed, the robed man sprang to his feet to escape after the small amount of rest he had. However, he had made his decision too late, as no amount of running could outrun the lightning-imbued arrow that was shot. The arrow struck the robed man in his leg, and as the man tumbled, the men clad in armour closed the distance.

"Damn it... Now that it has come to this, I'll have to expedite the plan". Struggling with the grievous injury inflicted on him, the robed man raised his hand and concentrated. Numerous circles containing runic symbols enveloped the ground; each circle emanating a yellow light and intense pressure.

“Buy me some time, spirits of earth.”

Within the yellow runic circles, the ground shook. Hands started to form from the ground, and within a blink of an eye, three towering golems stood before the men in armour.

No sooner had the golems been summoned, than the robed man start to concentrate on a new spell. A spell that felt unnerving and soul wrenching. The knights had beads of sweat on their foreheads, but neither from fatigue nor from the heat.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” said the knight who led the group, with an air of authority surrounding him. "Vanguard knights, I’ll take point. Follow me and engage the golems. Nicholas and his team, support us."

The vanguard knights, empowered with newfound vigour from the support spells, engaged the golem at the front. The ground rumbled in the fight. Boulders were created out of the ground, by the two golems at the back, and flung at the group of knights, but having travelled only half of the distance in air, were destroyed by bolts of magic, fire and earth, casted by the group of people tasked with assisting the vanguard knights.

“Those mages are making things difficult…”, said the robed man with an annoyed and pained voice.

With his fingers pointed towards Nicholas’s team, the robed man closed his eyes and concentrated. Three purple runes formed behind the robed man’s head, and ravens, as dark as night, with rotting flesh, materialize from the runes.

The ravens, under the orders of the robed man, flew with great speed at the team assisting the vanguard. Yet as soon as one of the ravens got close to the magi’s team, an arrow struck it down.

"Eyes up! Aerial summons incoming!", the ranger shouted. After glancing at the ravens for a second, the man who seemed to led the group of spell-casting magi noticed the convulsing muscles of the ravens.

“Stay a good distance away from those ravens when you kill them! They’re ticking time bombs of god-knows-what disease they have in them! Martin, shoot them out of the sky before they reach us”, shouted the leader of the spell-casting team.

“Heard ya loud and clear!”, exclaimed the ranger named Martin, who fired the arrow at the robed man at the start of the fight.

The biggest of the three golems swung its massive hand at the group in front. However, what stood before that golem was the immovable knight who took point and led the vanguard knights.

The muscles of the lead knight tensed and glowed, followed by him raising his shield to block the strike of the golem. The fist struck the shield with great force, and the shield responded with pulsing light, flowing from the hand of the lead knight. With a grunt, the lead knight bashed the hand away and created a sizable distance.

The robed man, seeing that the boulders thrown were blown to bits every time, and the biggest golem not being able to kill a single knight, was seething.

“Fuck all of you! You two! Stop throwing those rocks and crush them!”

The two golems who were throwing the boulders started to move.

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“Vanguard, hold a defensive line! Don’t let those two to pass! I’ll handle the big one!”, the lead knight shouted.

The fight continued for half an hour, after which things started to look in the knights’ favour.

The two golems held back by the vanguard started to crumble from the sustained damage they received, and the lead knight, with energy coursing through his veins, struck down the golem that remained. 

“The golems are down. Get that man now!”

“No…. Not yet!!! All you filthy mutts should know your place!” yelled the robed man as he hastily tried to complete the unnerving spell.

“That… All melee troops on me! “Shouts the lead knight. “Stop that spell from being casted!”

With the command given, the mage squad erected mounds of earth to get better view on the robed man, whereas the melee knights went in to apprehend the man. However, an invisible wall blocked their path to the robed man.

“Damnit. There’s a barrier spell here. Nicholas, dispel it.”

Nicholas tried to dispel the inner machinations of the spell but to no avail. "The spell is too complex to dispel, and has a self-sustaining formula of some sort. We have to deal damage more than the rate of repairs to get in."

"Fine."

The lead knight raises his sword, followed by the channelling of hidden power to his arms. "Every second we waste here gives the enemy a second to prepare. Ready your swords and mind to destroy the barrier"

Following the lead knight, the vanguard knights readied their sword in the same manner and channelled their inner strength. The mages, standing on the mounds of dirt, concentrated on readying magic circles.

"Mage squad ready!"

"Vanguard squad ready!"

The lead knight strikes the barrier, and his strike signalled the start of the strikes and impacts of the vanguard knights and the mages' precise spells. Every second of impact wore down the barrier.

Inside the barrier, the robed man smiled.

“None of you can stop what’s in motion. I will live on, so will my brethren, and we will take what was stolen from us…”

The barrier had been broken down. The knights went in to apprehend the robed man. Yet they were too late, as the spell had already been casted.

However, the consequences of the spell were odd. The glow of the magic circle faded after being casted, with the robed man falling to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

After seeing the sight of the robed man falling, the lead knight signalled Nicholas to check the body.

"Hmm... No traps...I have a bad feeling about this, Rian..." said Nicholas to the lead knight, as he was inspecting the body of the robed man. "A mage of that calibre dropped dead after casting his own spell, without even any delay. As if he wanted this outcome."

The lead knight approached the seemingly unmoving body.

"Why gloat of your victory, just to end up dead seconds later..." whispered the lead knight, after checking for his pulse. "He doesn't have anything on him."

"We are going back to his lair. Let's just hope the other squads have some information for us."

After a few hours of walking, the squad led by Rian had reached the rear exit of the lair. Near the exit was pile of corpses scattered about; some fresh from the assault that happened a few hours ago, some rotting from before the assault. After entering the rear, they saw a group of knights, geared similar to Rian and his knights, carrying books and miscellaneous items through the door that led to the exit.

"Status report." commands Rian to one of the knights carrying the items.

"All other mages and their creations have been dealt with, sir. All that’s left are these books and items that were inspected and deemed worthy of research. We are preparing them for transport. We have a few casualties, ranging from minor bruises to broken ribs."

"Any other abnormalities?"

"None at the moment, sir. Some of the creations that we thought we had killed, came back to life a while later when we were preparing the goods, but were eliminated without any issues."

Rian glances at the creations that the knight spoke of. Creatures whose size ranged from small ones like rodents, to large ones as big as bears. All these creatures had one thing common; the stitching of body parts of beasts and man alike to make something abhorrent.

Rian pondered about the situation. Since there was nothing else that should be done, to return to the capital was the only option that he had left. All they could do now was to hope for the existence of some clues in the lair's books, on what the targeted mages were doing here.

"Unless there's anything else to do, we will head back to Urythius with the confiscated items. Tell me when we are ready to move."

"Yes sir!"

The knight scurried off with the items. Rian then saw Nicholas approach him after ending his talk with the mages.

"The books don't appear to have much information on what these guys were doing here, at first glance. I would guess the books are enciphered with magic." said Nicholas to Rian. "I'll have them deciphered at Urythius, but it's going to take some time. It's hard, you know?"

"You mean to tell me the mages of Urythius, of all places, have trouble deciphering magic texts?"             

"The texts from this lair, as well as their mages, belong to the same group that keep creating the types of abominations. The same group that's been targeting the slums and villages of the kingdom. And trust me when I say this, these texts are a hard nut to crack. One wrong thought when concentrating, and poof, the books are burned to ashes."

"Then why are you telling me this? Last I checked, I was a magic knight, not a mage."

"I believe you know someone who might be a subject matter expert at this. That woman from Unasu? Would help to have her assistance."

"..."

Rian paused for a second. His thoughts went to the mage Nicholas was taking about. And how it wouldn't be appropriate to ask her for help at the moment. But the situation was too worrying to not ask and take risks.

"I'll see if I can do something."

With the raid over, the knights prepared to move. But they didn't notice that something ethereal had escaped their senses. Back from the time of Rian's fight with the robed man. And It moved to the nearest town. Unasu.